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Saturday, March 15, 2014

Former
world number 10 (2009) Flavia
Pennetta
caused a massive shock in the Semi Finals when she beat top seed Li
Na in straight sets. During Pennetta's 76 (7-5) 63 victory, both
players struggled with their serves. In the first set there was 8
consecutive breaks of serves en route to the first set tie break. Li
Na produced a disappointing 9 doubled faults (of which 8 was in the
first set) which also lead to Pennetta winning the set in a close
tiebreak. Li did make a positive start in the second set by breaking
the Italian to take a early 2-0 lead. This lead was however short
lived as last years US Open champion fought back to level it. The
deciding moment of the match was when Pennetta broke Li again to move
up 5-3 and one game away from her first ever
WTA Premier Mandatory final.
This was no problem for her as she served it out and took the match
on her second match point. This is now Pennetta's third victory over
Li Na. The first two was in 2006 at the Gold Coast and 2010 at
Sydney.

Meanwhile
Agnieszka Radwańska
enjoyed a 63 64 win over Romania’s Simona Halep. Prior to this
match Radwanska has produced encouraging wins over recent Doha
finalist Alize Cornet and world number 8 Jelena Jankovic. In the 85
minuet match Radwanska was only broken twice and produced 72% of
first serves in. Halep can however still leave Indian Wells feeling
very happy as she will be ranked in the top five on Monday for the
first time in her career. This will also make her the first Romanian
woman in History to reach the top 5 in the WTA rankings.

The
final will be the eighth time both players have met. They have
already played each other twice this year with each winning a match.
Radwanska won 62 62 at the Hopman cup and Pennetta won in Dubai 64
61. A full list of their previous matches are the following:-

Video highlights

Monday, March 10, 2014

This main focus this
week is of course about Indian Wells but below if a quick round up of
some other tennis related stories:-

Navak Djokovic
has been voted the greatest sportsperson from the former
Yugoslavia of all time! The Poll was conducted by Tivat Montenegro
with the judging panel consisting of numerous journalists from
Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro. This is yet another
accomplishment Djokovic can add to his name.

Jelena Jankovic
has completed her work on her new home and is looks pretty
impressive:-

Quoting
Serbian news outlet Kurir. Jankovic said the following about her
new home:-"It's really
beautiful and we finally finished it. I was there for three days it
rained, I wondered if I was in England
or San Diego,
which is unusual for this
part of America.
I am glad that I have had the opportunity to train on his tennis
court, and that makes me happy. Everything is nice and I can not
tell you how proud I am"

Mohamed El
Jennati is currently
the most hated tennis umpire at the moment. Following Saturdays bust
up against Fabio Fognini where Jennati controversially decided on a
point being replayed rather than giving it to Fognini which the
Italian truly believed he deserved. He disallowed Denis Istomin
requesting a hawk eye challenger on break point be claiming that Istomin didn't raise his hand (which he clearly did). This was two
very poor decisions by Jennati. Below is the videos of both
incidents:-

British
tennis ledgend Tim Hanman
has suggested that the players warm up before matches should be
scrapped. He was quoted by tennisworldusa.org as saying “''I think
it would be quite interesting not to have a knock-up. You come on
the court and spin the coin and go''. This somehow seems very
unlikely to happen on the circuit. Henman is not the first person to
say the pre match warm ups should be done with. Tennis commentator
Jonathan Overend argued the case in this article back in
2011.

In
a article posted on tennisworldusa.org. ContributerVishal
Gajaria has compiled a list of players who have serve the most aces so far
in 2014 on the ATP tour. The top 17 are the following:-

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Tomas
Berdych has suffered a shock second round loss to 25 year old Roberto
Bautista-Agut. The world number 53 was producing
amazing Nadal like shots throughout his roller coaster 46 62 64
victory against the forth seed.

In
the first set Bautista-Agut took an early advantage by breaking a
tentative Berdych in the first game. Agut looked in control of the
match until Berdych raced to a 0-40 lead against Agut when he was 4-3
up on serve. Despite being able to come back to deuce, it still
wasn't enough to contain Berdych as he broke to level it up at 4-4.
From there on Berdych took a strong foothold in the set by holding
his serve followed by breaking Agut for the second consecutive time
to take it 64. Berdych's winner-unforced errors ratio was 12-14
compared to Bautista-Agut's 9-22.

In
the next set the tides abruptly turned. Berdych was unable to carry
his first set momentum into the second set due to the mighty
resistance demonstrated by Bautista-Agut. Displaying some fantastic
constructed points Agut stormed on to take full command of the second
set which clearly rattled Berdych. The consistent Spaniard took it
comfortably 6-2 by producing 81% first serves in
(winning 77%). On the other hand Berdych's first serve was a dismal
35% as well as 17 unforced errors.

Things
kept going Agut's way as he draw first blood in the final set by
breaking Berdych's serve imediately yet again in the first game. Berdych did
manage to gradually come back to level the set again at 4-4 but this
was still not enough to contain Agut. The Spaniard broke again to
serve it out and take the match on his first match point. This was a
disappointing loss for a slightly below par Berdych but nothing
should be taken away from Agut's brilliant performance and appraoch
to the match. This is now Agut's second top ten win in 2014 after his
win over Juan Martin Del Potro at the Australian Open.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Stanislas
Wawrinka returns to the pro tour for the first time since his
Australian Open triumph today to a potentially tricky encounter
against the fast serving Ivo Karlovic. Recently Karlovic has been in
good form by beating Feliciano Lopez and Yen-Hsun Lu on route to the
final at the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships in Memphis. He
has also reached the quarter finals in Mexico last week before losing
to surprised runner up Alexandr Dolgolpolov. Since 2006 these two has
meet 4 times with Wawrinka leading 3-1. Their most recent match was
last year at the US Open where Wawrinka was victorious in a close
three sets match. Karlovic may be in good form lately but he will
need to be at the very top of his game to cause a massive shock
today. The only thing that could be to Karlovic's advantage is the
Australian Open Champion's lack of recent match play.

Predicted
result – Wawrinka wins 2-1

Lukas
Rosol (CZE) V [5] Andy Murray (GBR)

Andy Murray begins his Indian Wells
campaign against Lukas Rasol. Murray's best result so far in this
tournament was runner up back in 2009. He will be hoping for a good
run during the tournament to put some spice in to his very average
season so far. This will be the first time that the two players have
met. This is expected to be a straight forward match for Murray.
Rosol has had two top 10 wins to his name which was his memorable 2011
wimbledon win over Rafael Nadal and former top 10 player Jürgen
Melzer back in 2011.

Predicted
result – Murray wins 2-0

[17]
Kevin Anderson (RSA) V Lleyton Hewitt (AUS)

Since
his win at the very beginning of the year in Brisbane. Lleyton
Hewitt's performance has rapidly faded. With injury concerns playing
on the Australian's mind following his withdrawal in the second round
of Delray Beach due to a shoulder Injury last month. Fortunately
during the tournament in the first round he produce a convincing
three sets win over Matthew Ebden to settle him down. In round two he faces a hard task against 17th
seed Kevin Anderson. Anderson has made the finals of his past two
tournament's in Acapulco and Delray Beach which has elevated him to a
career ranking high of 18.There has only been one meet before between these
two which was in 2011. On that occasion it was Hewitt who was
victorious in three sets. This time round the momentum is without a
doubt more towards Anderson with the question being how well will
Hewitt's shoulder hold up? There is however a big incentive for
Hewitt to win. If he succeeds he will record his 600th
tour win.

Predicted
result – Anderson wins 2-1

[Q]
Paul-Henri Mathieu (FRA) V [7] Roger Federer (SUI)

Roger Federer finally won his first
title last week in Dubai after nearly a year (Halle, 2013). He was in
sublime form last week playing spectacular tennis which at times which had been missing from his season last year. In Dubai the great Swiss
player produced back to back wins over Navak Djokovic and Tomas
Berdych. Federer will be hoping to continue his form and in his first
match against Paul-Henri Mathieu, it shouldn't be too testing. 31 year
old Mathieu has a 3-3 win-loss so far this season. During the
tournament so far he has comfortably came through qualifying and
enjoyed a first round win over follow qualifier Robby
Ginepri 62 63. Federer has a dominant 6-0 head to head lead and it
is widely expected that tonight will be his seventh.

Predicted
results – Federer wins 2-0

[1]
Rafael Nadal (ESP) V Radek Stepanek (CZE)

Defending
champion Rafael Nadal opens up his title defence against former world
number 8 (2006) Radek Stepanek. Stepanek has a 4-4 win-loss this year
compared to Nadal's dominant 16-1. The two players has met 6 times
before with victory going to Nadal on all occasions but the world
number 1 has been force to three sets three times before. In the
first round Stepanek endured a two hour 61 36 61 win over Denis
Istomin. During the match the Czech was only broken once and produced
no double faults. Despite this nobody is foreseeing a shock in this
match.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Yesterday saw the first round of
qualification for the Women's Indian Wells main draw get under way.
Wild card Heather Watson shocked 7th seed Virginie
Razzano with a straight 61 64 victory. Watson who recently won a ITF $100,000 title in Midland will face in the next round Brazilian
number 1 Teliana Pereira in
what will be their first meet. Pereira eased past Yulia Putintseva
63 63. It was a good day for the higher seeds with all of the top six
progressing to the next stage. Top seed Barbora
Záhlavová-Strýcová endured a close
first set on way to a 76 63 win over 2011 US Open girls champion
Grace Min. Yaroslava Shvedova
however had a much tougher time against Polands Magda Linette in a
match lasting two and a half hours. Shvedova dropped the first set
36 after only 42 minuets. Fourtnately the third seed was able to
regain control of the match to take it 36 64 64. Throughout the match
there was a stagering 17 break of serves! Some other winners on day 1
included Casey Dellacqua, Camila Giorgi
and a good win for British world number 116 Johanna
Konta. Konta edgae out Petra Martić 63 46
63.

Below is a list of the draw's 24 seeds with the players
highlighted in bold indicating that they have progressed to the next
round.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Launching
at the of this year will by the International Premier Tennis
League. The idea of this event is adapted from the international
cricket league where it will showcase players during the off season
of the tour. This will take place between November 28th
- December 20th. Events will take place in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur,
Mumbai, Singapore and Hong Kong. The format will be similar to
Football in a way where teams get to bids for players. There is 6-8
players per team with each team having a budget of $10 million US
Dollars.

So far Tomas Berdych
has confirmed his participation in the forthcoming event. Commenting
on the event Berdych was quoted as saying:-“It (is)
something that can make our sport even more attractive and brings
something extra to the players and all the people and all the fans
around the world”

“I’m looking forward to it. I’d be really
glad to become the part of it. I like the new things, I like new
ideas. So why not?”

There could potentially
be a clearer idea of who else will be playing next week after a bidding
event begins over the weekend in Dubai. Rumours are circulating that
Rafael Nadal will be paid in the range of $1 million per night if he
competes! Indian NDTV is also reporting that Victoria Azarenka,
Caroline Wozniacki and Agnieszka Radwanska has also express a
interest in the women’s section.

This event will have it
pros and cons. The players will benefit from having the chance to
still be competitive and maintain form during the off season whilst
generating extra money. On the other hand with no proper rest period
the players could be more likely prone to injuries. These reasons
gives tennis fans and players a sense of integument of how much of a
success the big money spending event will be.

Players confirmed

Tomas Berdych

Players speculated
by media sources

Andy Murray - but on a
"one night stand basis” according to The Daily Telegraph

Rafael Nadal –
various media reports

Caroline Wozniacki –
NDTV

Victoria Azarenka –
NDTV

Agnieszka Radwanska – NDTV

Novak Djokovic – Daily Mail and one of the
co-founders is Boris Becker who is in Djokovic's team

Sarena Williams – Daily Mail

Indian tennis players – Indian idea by a Indian
tennis great. You don't need media sources to tell you that the field
will most likely have some sort of Indian vibe to the field.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Andy Murray was force to come back from a set down in his first round
win over the in form Pablo Andujar. Andujar reached the semi finals
last week at the Rio Open and force Rafael Nadal to battle his way to
the final in a almost three hour epic. Murray got off to a terrible
start in the match by suffering two consecutive breaks of serve
leading to Andujar surging ahead with a 5-0 lead. Fortunately for
Murray he managed to generate some momentum very late in the set by
saving set point to hold serve and then breaking Andujar for the
first time. The was however too little too late as the world number
34 took it 63 in just 53 minuets.

Sensing the danger of a
shock first round loss after losing the first set and his serve in
the first game of the second. Murray responded like a true Grand Slam
champion by winning the next six games without having a break point
on his serve to level the match at one set all. Going in to the final
set the first four games all went on serve. Then in the fifth game
Murray struck again by breaking Andujar on his third break point.
This then put Murray in command of the match and he was able to
easily navigate himself to the finish line by breaking Andujar yet
again in the set. The final scoreline was 36 61 62. During the match
Murray produced 37 winners. Video Highlights of the match are below (via Tennis Pro DPT Youtube account) :-

In the next round Murray will play Portugal’s world number 44 João
Sousa after his 16 62 62 win over Frenchman Adrian Mannarino. This
will be the second time Murray will play Sousa after his straight
sets win over him at the Australian Open last year.

Elsewhere
in the tournaments it was a good day for nearly all of the seeded
players with 7 out 8 progressing to round
2. The only seed that didn't make the last 16 was Vasek Pospisil who
suffered a 26 26 loss to last week's Rio Open runner up Alexandr
Dolgopolov. This was Pospisil's first match since withdrawing from
the third round of the Australian Open with a back injury.

For
a full list of results from Mexico and all the other tournaments
going on chock out the results section.